


Everything But You

by marauder_in_warblerland



Series: Klaine Advent Challenge 2014 [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:56:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauder_in_warblerland/pseuds/marauder_in_warblerland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine's been hearing things-- unusual things-- but Sam can't seem to understand. This is a story about gaps, mysteries, and longing, but most of all, it's a story about love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m not crazy, Sam—” Blaine starts.

“Then we agree!”

“—But this isn’t _normal_.” Blaine gestures with his pint glass as he talks, the beer sloshing up against the side. “I heard a voice, as clear as you or me, and that’s not the sort of thing that you—” He cuts himself off, at a loss for exactly what that kind of behavior suggests. He knows that it wouldn’t play well with his boss at the theater or, god forbid, with his father.

“So you heard a voice in the shower,” Sam shrugs, loose limbed and buoyant. They’ve been sitting in the Malt House for hours, and neither of them are on their first drink. “There’s this little thing called an echo, my friend, and I think it might have made you its bitch.”

Blaine glares, but there’s no heat behind his eyes. “Echoes don’t usually harmonize, Sam, but I take your point.” 

“Goooood,” Sam drawls, pushing his empty class towards the bartender and raising his fingers for two more, “then stop psycho —psycho — stop thinking about yourself and tell me what to get Mercedes for Christmas. So far I’ve narrowed it down to ‘not a puppy.’” He turns, ready to punch Blaine in the shoulder, but stops short when he sees Blaine’s face. “I mean, we can keep talking if you want,” he offers, trying to keep from falling off of the barstool, “but it was just the song, right?”

“That’s all of it,” Blaine sighs, and Sam launches into list of potential presents.

The song wasn’t nearly all of it. 

The song was— it hardly captured the tip of the iceberg, but Blaine wasn’t about to tell Sam about the humming or about the odd tapping in the study. They might have been best friends since college, but he couldn’t even tell his best friend about _the hands_.

Three days ago, he’d been cleaning the bathroom, rubbing hard between the tiles, when he could have sworn something moved out the corner of his eye. He looked straight up, and found two handprints pressed into the white bathroom wall, thumbs pointed in. Even if he had been drunk or stupid enough to deface his own apartment, the hands were up too high to be his own. In fact, if he stood by the wall, the dark smudges of long thin fingers were just high enough to sit on either side of his shoulders, as though someone had needed to lean in—close.

When Blaine looked again, they were gone, nothing more than a black burn on the inside of his eyelids, but he was almost certain that he could feel where they should have been. As he trailed his hands over the empty white plaster, heat bloomed under his palms. Two points were still letting off warmth, like a blanket that had just been held.

And then there were the rolls. 

Blaine had never been fond of packaged sweets. As a rule, when he ate desserts, he wanted them to be made fresh by someone who was good at their job, but two days ago he needed cheap sugar like a dying man needs bread. At one in the morning on a Thursday, he’d found himself in the freezer aisle of the grocery store buying three packages of the most processed cinnamon rolls he’d ever seen in his life.

They didn’t look appealing. Hell, they didn’t even look edible, but he needed them. There was this aching hold in his gut, like a clenched fist, that, somehow, could only be made better through cardboard bread and pre-fabricated frosting, so he baked. For two hours he stood by the microwave watching the packages bubble and turn. When he dropped them off at his weekly potluck, he had to look away before he could see anyone take a bite. As much as the rolls needed to exist, the thought of actually seeing them eaten turned his stomach and made the punch taste like ashes on his tongue.

He can’t tell Sam about the ashes. He can’t talk about the ashes any more than he can talk about the tug he imagined on the other side of the sheet when he was making the bed that morning or about the rose the thought he saw on his dressing room table after his opening night at the Actor’s Playhouse. Like the hands, it wasn’t there an instant later. He wasn’t even sure whether the orange petals had been real, but for a second something was there, and it felt like love.

“Another?” Sam asks, shaking his empty pint glass in Blaine’s face. Blaine doesn’t remember seeing Sam finish his beer, but then again, he also doesn’t remember finishing his own.

He shakes his head. “No thanks.” I’m meeting David for coffee in—” he checks his watch, “in eight hours, so it’s time for me to tap out.” He slides off of the bar stool and watches as the bar patrons wobble in front of his eyes. Or maybe it’s his eyes doing the wobbling.

“It’s awesome that you still hang with Warbler dudes,” Sam announces, with a slam to the top of the bar. He grabs their coats from under the stools and beckons Blaine to follow him toward the door. “Have I ever told you that I used to be kinda jealous of your whole singing and dancing thing?”

“Singing and dancing thing?” Blaine echoes, trying to follow Sam’s feet.

“Yeah. My friend Finn— you remember Finn?— he was into our high school’s singing thing for, like, five minutes at the beginning of Sophomore year. Then the group fell apart and I guess they all left.” Sam glances back over his shoulder as he opens the front door. 

 “You guess?” Blaine asks. He doesn’t remember it being this cold.

“It went down before I got there. Everyone except Mercedes and Matt transferred. Finn even ended up at a different school because his mom got married to another kid’s dad and they all moved.”

“Huh.” Blaine pulls his coat tight against his body as they stumble to the bus stop. “That’s so—” He can’t put his finger on what makes him sad about Sam’s story. As soon as he thinks he has a reason, it melts away, like snow in his palm. 

“Mañana!” Sam calls, as he climbs onto his bus, and Blaine nods his way.

The 38 bus won’t come for a while. The snow will see to that, but Blaine can wait. He leans against a street light, glowing orange against the falling snow, and stares into the darkness. Under the next streetlight, little boys slide like figure skaters on patches of ice. Clearly, he should be cold. It’s below freezing, but for no reason he can fathom it's warm at his side. As the snow settles in gentle drifts around his ankles, Blaine closes his eyes and rests his head on open, empty air.


	2. Chapter 2

Blaine drops a quarter into the wheezy old machine and pretends that his song choice is random.

No one believes him.

Anyone with ears can tell that he isn’t _accidentally_ playing the Beatles’ greatest hits in a county-western bar.

When “Blackbird” starts for maybe the third time, Blaine shrugs and leans against the jukebox. The Red Rock Saloon could kick him out for being a jerk, and they’d be justified. He isn’t even drinking anything stronger than root beer, not after last night. After his wobble home at 3 AM and his raging hangover, he promised Sam that he wouldn’t drink, but he still had to get out of his apartment. 

It’s worse at the apartment. Everywhere he turns, he runs into things that don’t belong, like cans of whipped cream in the fridge and strange ties dangling off the back of the sofa. None of it is frightening. It’s more . . . unnerving, as though he’s acquired a new roommate who refuses to introduce himself. 

So, he went to The Red Rock Saloon, away from the tugs and the phantom songs. For about five minutes he’d been able to breath easier and then— Blaine laughs, low and dark, into the darkness of the bar.

He felt _lonely_. 

Five minutes without his special ghost friend, and he practically ran to the jukebox and started shoving money in the slot. Why they even have the Beatles, he can’t guess, but he’s been playing every number one hit for nearly an hour. Of course, he can’t explain why. It’s like the cinnamon rolls. “All You Need is Love” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” just had to play for five surly country fans; choice had nothing to do with it.

“Hey, honey?” The bartender leans over the bar, her chest resting lightly on her arms. “If you’re gonna stick with the sixties, I’d appreciate a little Tammy Wynette.” She gives a significant head jerk toward the other patrons. “Think you can do that, sugar?”

 _No._ Blaine wants to say, _I really can’t_ , but he nods and scuffs his sole against the floor.

“Don’t mind her, kid!” a round, greying man calls from the bar. “Keep it up. My wife likes the White Album.” An equally round woman gives him a thumbs up and a toothy grin. Blaine raises his hand to wave back, past the scowling bartender, when he sees a single, white piece of paper taped to the wall.

“ **You feel it too** ,” it says, in stark, unvarnished black. It’s not a question. And below that: 

“ **Call 342-890-5502. Say _kindred_**.”

***********

Thirty minutes later, Blaine sits on the floor of his bedroom, his back against the wall, and the phone pressed against his ear like a lifeline.

The phone rings too many times, and with each ring Blaine becomes more certain of his own insanity. _Who in their right mind calls a random number from a dive bar?_ Blaine might as well hang a sign around his neck announcing his availability for amateur meth dealers and bible salesmen. It would be easier for everyone involved.

“Yes? What do you want?” A female voice cuts through the receiver like a shot, and Blaine presses himself harder against the wall. He can probably cross bible salesman off the list.

“Hi?” he asks, his voice higher than he’d like, “I’m—”

“No names,” the voice barks back. “I don’t want your name and you do not get mine. You could be anyone and you’re gonna stay that way. You understand me?”

Blaine nods, forgetting for a second that the voice cannot see him.

“Now,” she says with a heavy sigh, “if this isn’t a prank and you didn’t just call to waste my time, I’m going to need some evidence in the next three seconds. Otherwise, I am going to find you and make sure that you can never have children. Am I making myself—”

“Kindred,” Blaine says. He wishes it sounded more confident, but he gets it out. For a long minute, the voice falls silent. He worries that he might have offended her. His teachers always hated it when he interrupted, but when she speaks again, he hears the smile in her voice.

“Really,” she says. It isn’t a question. “Good. Then you’ve come to the right place. You can call me Z.” 

**********

At exactly 7:15 PM, Blaine finds himself staring over a coffee shop table at the most intimidating woman he has ever met. She has to be about his age, but there’s something about her combo of dark hard and bright red lipstick over a hardened scowl that makes him want to hide under the table. Perhaps that’s smart; she’s big enough to take him down without breaking a sweat. He pokes at his steaming coffee and wonders if Z wrestles.

As he fidgets, she reaches into her backpack and pulls out a manila folder, stuffed to bursting with hand-written notes. She drops it on the coffee table with a bang and he’s reminded of an FBI file, or at least what passes for an FBI file on television.

“So,” she starts, pulling a typed list out of the middle of the stack, “I need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sounds, cravings, random body parts appearing out of fucking nowhere . . . what are we talking about?” Blaine stares and Z stares right back, pen poised to take notes, as though she’d just asked for his employee ID number or his lunch order.

_What we’re dealing with?_

“I—” Blaine takes a deep breath and bursts out laughing, full throated and shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry! I’m really very sorry. It’s just— ” he wipes his eyes with the heel of his palms and breathes, slowly. “This is the first time I haven’t felt crazy in weeks. I just—thank you for making my ghost problem sound so normal.”

“Good,” Z says, squinting down at her papers, “but you’re wrong.” She scribbles something on the top sheet and glances back up. “You don’t have a ghost problem.”

“Then what do I—?”

“If I’m right about this,” she continues, “there is someone or something trying to get to you. It just isn’t dead yet.”

And here he thought that nothing could be worse than haunting. “Yet.” He echoes.

“Exactly.” He must look as confused as he feels; Z sighs and leans forward in her chair. “Let me explain it this way. Imagine that this newspaper is your life. This style section, this is you and these salt shakers are the people in your life, okay?” He nods and she goes on, like a coach at halftime. “So you go around, living your newspaper life and as you do, the people in your life leave marks behind. This mark might be that weekly phone call with your mom and this one might be the hottie you take home from the club.” Z grinds the bottom of the shakers into the newspaper until they leave tiny, indented circles in the print. As she pulls the shakers away, he reaches out and touches the raised edge with the pad of his finger.

“Now,” she says, slowly, “imagine what happens if we take away the shakers.” She hides them behind her back and Blaine can only stare at the spaces where they should have been. “The marks still exist in the newspaper, but nothing exists to make them. That is, basically, what happened to your life. Someone took away your salt shaker and all you have left are—”

“—the imprints.” Blaine finishes, quietly. There’s no rational reason why her explanation should make sense, but it does. The problem has never been with the handprints on the bathroom wall or the rose in the dressing room. The problem is that someone else is supposed to be there to leave them behind.

“But what happened to my salt shaker,” he asks. “I mean, my person? Is he okay?”

“He?” Z cracks a smile, and Blaine has the good sense to look abashed. “I honestly don’t know,” she admits with a shrug. “I suppose it depends how the switch happened. For all I know, somebody killed the wrong butterfly when you were five and you’ve both been living the wrong lives ever since.” 

“The wrong lives.” Blaine tries the words on his tongue and they don’t sound as strange as he expects. He can deal with this insanity, but only under one condition. “Z,” he asks, looking up from the table, “what do I have to do?”

“Do?” she echoes.

“To find him.” 


	3. Chapter 3

_6:43 PM: Hear music from the study. Can’t place the tune, but it’s peppy? Stops after a count of ten._

_Will continue to monitor._

Blaine sits back on his heels and writes the new note in tiny script at the bottom of the notebook page. It’s nearly identical to the one above it and to the one three above that, but if he keeps writing, maybe it will all start to make sense.

“Follow the patterns,” Z had said, when he asked how he was supposed to track down his mystery life-invader. “Write ‘em down and hope they start talking to you.” In other words, if he wants any chance of recognizing his guy in the wild, Blaine has to be able to tell the difference between the telling detail and the meaningless noise.

So, for two days he follows patterns and, in the process, turns his apartment into something out of CSI: Miami. Colored tape stretches from wall to wall, marking out places where things have happened that he couldn’t explain. There’s a circle where a vase appeared and then disappeared last night, and a line straight through the kitchen where a potato smacked into a wall.

Blaine leans down to run his finger along the blue tape where an ink stain appeared on the hardwood floor. Mapped out like this, in bright whites and blues, it all starts to seem like . . . A lot. Somewhere, in the back of his mind he’d known that the occurrences were escalating. He’d seen, heard, and craved too much to ignore, but it’s something else seeing the tangible tracks of another life as it tries to collide with his own. 

Back at the coffee shop, Z warned him not to expect too much. He must have looked too hopeful. “Kid,” she sighed. “I’ve never met anyone who found their . . . salt shaker. Usually, they just get used to living in a Halloween special, but I get where you’re coming from. If I had an invisible stalker, I’d probably want to find him just so I could punch him in the face.” Blaine laughed under his breath, but Z didn’t look like she was kidding. Perhaps it didn’t take much to make Z want to punch someone in the face.

He almost wishes he felt the same way.

For the last three days he’s been living his life alongside some faceless, nameless thing that makes him eat terrible food and memorize songs he doesn’t even like. Each new compulsion sticks into his skin like a needle he can’t remove. They ache in their very strangeness and yet, he doesn’t want to hurt his ghost who isn’t a ghost. Far from it.

 _What would he do if he found his ghost tonight?_ Blaine doesn’t know, but as he rubs his tired eyes, he knows what some lonely part of him wants. Somehow, last night, his _want_ was as real as life and in his bed. 

As he rubs his thumb over the rough edge where the tape meets the floor, he remembers real hands sliding up his arms and lips mouthing at the skin behind his ear. Maybe it was all a vivid dream, but it doesn’t really matter. He only knows that last night he canted his hips up to meet a warm, strong body, and he knows that that body pushed back. He remembers kissing rough, stubbled skin and breathing into an open panting mouth as a body crouched over his own. The body— _his body_ was solid and so _there_. His soft hair fell against Blaine’s forehead and his nails scratched a path down Blaine’s back. He was a delicious, dizzying weight and Blaine’s legs fell open, wide, to let him in. They rutted, slow and desperate, in the darkness, Blaine’s hands reaching down to cup the man’s ass and pull him in— harder.

When Blaine pushed up to kiss the man’s forehead, his lips, anything he could reach, he wanted to think that he was kissing a stranger, but nothing about him felt strange. Blaine knew these arms and those lips better than his own. They were his heartbeat and the last thought before he fell asleep.

When he came, lights bursting behind his eyes, Blaine thought for a moment that he saw something real. As the body above him seized in a silent scream, he thought that he saw eyes blinking open, and he thought those eyes might have been blue.

“Are you done in the living room? The wifi sucks back here.” Sam’s voice echoes from the other side of the apartment and Blaine shakes himself out of his reverie. He’d told Sam that he was thinking about redecorating, thus offering some thin explanation for the tape and the added anal-retention. Blaine doesn’t think Sam bought it, but he’s kind enough to pretend.

“Come on in,” Blaine calls. “Sorry for sticking you in the study for so long. I’m usually a better host.” He pushes himself to his feet and shakes out the echoes of last night as Sam bounds in, carrying an open laptop in his arms.

He scoffs. “Man, you don’t need to _host_ me anymore, whatever than means. Finn just keeps thinking I’m hanging up on him every time the wifi cuts out, and I can’t handle that much drama.” 

“Hey!” A voice emerges from the laptop speakers, and Sam directs his attention back down to the face on Skype screen.

“Don’t deny it,” Sam shoots back. “You thought I was doing the bro equivalent of breaking up with you.”

“It was really fast and you didn’t warn me!”

Sam sets the computer down on the coffee table, and Blaine makes out a guy leaning strangely close to the camera on the other side. Then he smiles, and Blaine can see why Sam likes him anyway.

“Plus,” Finn continues, “I’m not the one being dramatic, and if I am it’s because drama is contagious.” He glances to the side, as if checking for spies and then whispers into the microphone, “Kurt’s in town.”

Blaine twitches. _Shit._ He needs to listen to something, like in the bar or like a million times since. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts shuffling through his playlists, unsure of what he’s looking for. Maybe if he puts on headphones and plays something quietly, Sam won’t tell this Finn kid that he’s a total freak. 

As Blaine searches, the other boys keep talking, like the background chatter in a coffee shop. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Finn says to Sam, “you know I know how great Kurt is. He’s my brother, but there’s something extra _Kurt_ about him this time. He’s like himself only turned up to eleven.”

Sam audibly rolls his eyes. “Dude, it’s probably the book tour. How would you feel if you had to be all official for the first time?” He reaches into his backpack and pull out an open bag of Doritos, the top scrunched into a tight spiral.

“I’d feel like crap,” Finn admits, “but that’s also never gonna happen. People like me don’t write books.”

Blaine keeps searching. Nothing in the Bs feels right, but the ache keeps getting stronger, like someone’s pushing the needles further in and twisting them until they burn.

“I guess people like Kurt write books,” Finn goes on, half to himself, “but that’s weird too, because he never told anybody he was writing it. I kinda wish he’d said _something_.”

“Why?” Sam asks, around a mouthful of chips.

“I dunno. Wouldn’t you want to know if your brother was writing a book? I might have been more careful about the stuff I said.”

“It’s not a memoir, Finn.” A voice, high, light, and mocking, rises from the other side of the call, and Blaine stops searching. “ It’s a novel, and I can promise that none of the characters are based on you.” 

The voice disappears, the other boys laugh, and Blaine cannot breathe. He didn’t recognize the sound. He—the voice— it didn’t sound like anyone he had ever met— but for just—just a minute he saw something. When the man spoke, he saw a flash of a wide, toothy smile under a crinkled nose and brilliant blue eyes—that—that—he thinks he might know those eyes.

“Who?” Blaine can only get out the word, but Sam’s too distracted to notice.

“That’s Finn’s brother.” Sam says, like it’s nothing. “He’s in— Finn, where’s Kurt living now?” 

“San Francisco, but he headed out here for the tour—”

“Three days ago.” Blaine finishes. It isn’t a question. Three days ago, this man, this _Kurt_ started traveling toward New York and toward him. “What’s his last name?” Blaine asks, before he can think. When Sam shoots him an odd look, he stutters, “Maybe—maybe I’ll check out his book.”

“Hummel.” Finn answers. Sam just stares.

“Kurt Hummel,” Blaine echoes back. He won't need help remembering that name. The sounds make sense on his tongue, like a spell his body can't quite remember how to cast. He knew it once and, somehow, he'll learn it again.


	4. Chapter 4

Apparently, Christmas threw up all over Barnes and Noble.

For a supposedly secular store, the wreathes and holly draped over the shelves are almost garish in their festive joy, not to mention the Ariana Grande remix playing in a loop over the sound system. Blaine can’t imagine how the store employees haven’t already lost their minds.

Usually, Blaine would be 100% in for the extravagant Christmas of it all, but after four days of waiting for Kurt’s New York book signing, it’s all a bit much.

“Welcome to Barnes and Noble! If you’re here for the book signing, just follow the arrows up the stairs and pick up a copy of the book from the stacks as you enter the atrium. After a brief reading, Mr. Hummel will be available to sign purchased copies.” A middle-aged employee with brown-grey bangs guides him towards the stairs, and Blaine follows her lead, gripping onto his messenger bag for dear life.

 _This is it,_ he thinks, as he reaches the top of the stairs and swipes a book from the stacks. _This is when I get to put a face on my ghost who isn’t a ghost_. Of course, this is also when he finds out if he’s gone crazy, but he doesn’t think about that.

The reading is only five minutes away, which means that by Blaine’s standards he’s late. Usually, he’d still have plenty of time to buy a book and splash water on his face in the bathroom, but today it seemed wiser to arrive late. That way, he wouldn’t be tempted to speak to the author or do anything else similarly stupid. He feels like a live wire threatening to throw out sparks and set fire to the building.

Even with minutes to spare, the audience is sparse. Three lines of folding chairs sit in front of an open podium, with a handful of spectators scattered throughout the second and third rows. No one ever sits in the first row, except apparently Blaine. He perches, gingerly, in the last chair on the far left side, and taps the book against his knee. 

Logically, Kurt could be anywhere in the room. Blaine has never met him, and he couldn’t bring himself to ask Sam to describe his high school acquaintances. Even Blaine has his limit for strange looks and side-eye glances, so Kurt could be anyone. He might look like the freckle-faced kid passing out pre-signed copies, or like the lanky man waving people towards their seats. Until—

A tight clump of bodies, mostly women, enters from a door to the right of the podium, and all at once Blaine knows: _that’s him_. 

Kurt Hummel is— he’s tall, that’s clear. Between three women, he’s practically a giant, even when he ducks his head. One woman in a wrap dress and severe heels has her arm around his shoulders and seems to be talking him through the signing. She counts on her fingers as he watches, nodding each time she adds a new number. His eyes are serious, even when she pokes him in the side, but as he raises his head, Blaine realizes the word he’s looking for is _poised_. Kurt Hummel is poised.

The high lines of his hair, the blue of his button-up against his eyes, hell, even the book tucked under his arm might as well have been chosen by an artist composing a man. Every piece of him fits the picture. Someone might as well have drawn his body in clean, elegant lines and as Blaine follows the jut of Kurt’s hip, he wonders if there’s room for anything (or anyone) else in the composition.

“If you would take your seats, Kurt Hummel will begin today’s reading.” The women in the wrap dress smiles at the podium, but it sounds like an order. People sit.

As the manager of the store steps up to introduce the author, Blaine finally glances down at the back of the book in his lap and stares in dumb confusion. It’s called _Remember Me_.

The lead character is nameless, without a hometown or a family. He’s an everyman in every sense of the term, and he sings. He’s a high school choir boy who loves fancy bow ties and making gifts that no one else can match. In the excerpt on the dust jacket, he lays out his schedule for the school day—

_6:30 AM —Wake up_

_7:30 AM— leave for school_

_7:45 AM— stop to pick up coffees_

_8:03 AM— Cut through kitchen to locker_

_8:05 AM— Review notes for Spanish_

That’s Blaine’s schedule, except it’s not. He never had a school kitchen to cut through, and he took French all the way through Dalton, but if he’d been somewhere else, that’s what he would have done. 

“Good afternoon, everyone!” Up at the podium, Kurt steps to the fore, and Blaine forces himself to stop reading the schedule. “Thank you for taking time away from your busy Christmas shopping to attend my little reading. The checks are in the mail.” He bites his lip, as though worried that the joke won’t land. It does fine. People smile, but his fingers keep tapping against the podium. Blaine wants to hold them, and let them relax.

“Santana tells me that I should make this quick,” Kurt says, jerking his head at the woman in the dress and the heels, “so I’ll just read a short section from chapter three. Our protagonist is about to step on stage to take on a role he’s not sure he deserves, and that’s how you know that my characters are not autobiographical.” He smiles as he opens the book on the podium and sinks into his own words.

 _It was too late to call off the show,_ Kurt reads.

_At his back, beyond the curtain on the auditorium stage, the audience murmured and rumbled, settling into their seats for a show that he could not perform. He dropped his head into his hands and pressed his temples. At this rate, he was in danger of ruining his stage makeup, but he couldn’t bring himself to care._

_He’d prepared as well as anyone could. He knew that in the logical part of his brain, but that didn’t mean that the rest of his stupid mind would stop screaming at him to get off the stage and let them find another Tony. They needed someone with life experience, someone who could express love and sex without pulling feelings out of thin air. They needed—_  

Blaine wants to stop listening, but most of all he wants to stop knowing what’s going to happen next. He was never cast in a production of _West Side Story_. He never actually played Tony or anything else in a musical because Dalton didn’t have musicals, but he remembers that mental monologue. He knows the welling insecurity before every Warblers show and how it disappears when the first song begins. He knows how he rubs his temples backstage, but he can’t imagine how— 

As Kurt continues reading, creating voices for his characters, Blaine plasters a smile over his panic. Today, he came prepared to meet his ghost, but he wasn’t ready to see a twisted, too-familiar echo of his own mind living in someone else’s life. 

The little audience claps, politely, when Kurt stops reading. He nods. “Thank you, everyone. If you have any questions, I will take them now.” He pauses in the silence. “Now, don’t all speak at once.” 

The audience chuckles and a young woman raises her hand in the last row. 

“Are you working on another novel?” she asks, clutching his first novel to her chest. “I really hope you are. Thank you very much,” she squeaks and sits back down. Apparently, Kurt has fans.

“No, thank _you_ ,” Kurt smiles as a blush appears high on his cheeks. “Right now, I’m waiting for inspiration. Like I say in the acknowledgments, I never planned on being a novelist. This baby just came to me, so I might have to work harder for novel number two. However, I will let you know as soon as I have something to share.” He shakes _Remember Me_ for emphasis and then swings to look directly at Blaine.

Kurt’s eyes flick from his face, to his hair, and finally to the hand that Blaine didn’t realize was in the air.

“Yes?” Kurt asks, and Blaine stands, his heart beating too loudly in his chest.

“I—” he stutters. He needs a question. Or rather, he needs a question he can actually ask. He has too many questions. “I was wondering if you could say how, um, the main character does in the show? I understand if you can’t, but does—” he has to stop to catch his absent breath and Kurt waits. “Does his father come to the final performance?” 

Kurt cocks his head and leans over the podium like he’s having coffee with an old friend. “I wish I could say,” he grins, “but I wouldn’t want to give the plot away. I do still want you to buy the book. I’m glad to hear that you want to know more, though. I’ve got to be doing something right.”

I think it’s because of how you wrote the character,” Blaine responds, before he can stop himself. “I read a lot, but this man doesn’t feel like someone I’ve gotten to read about before. He’s gay but he’s not a stereotype, you know?” Kurt nods, like he knows. “He loves to perform and he likes fashion, but there’s also the part of him that wants to be one of the guys and watch football with his dad and—” He stops. Too late.

Kurt’s face drops, delight fading to confusion. “I didn’t mention football,” he says, softly. It isn’t a question.

Blaine doesn’t respond.

“I don’t think—” Kurt flips the book open to where he’d been reading and skims the page. His eyes jump from line to line. “I didn’t mention football.”

Blaine sits down, hard.

“Thank you all very much for coming, today!” Santana jumps in, rushing the stage and smiling, too-wide, at the tiny crowd. “It’s been a long week of signings, but our author would be happy to sign a copy. Wouldn’t you, Kurt?” She steps directly in front of Kurt’s body, and leads him off-stage toward the book signing table, both hands gripping his arm.

As they walk, Kurt stares, past her back to where Blaine sits frozen in his folding chair. Kurt doesn’t say anything as they pass. They’re moving too fast, but his eyes say, _Don’t you dare_.

They might as well be screaming for how well Blaine feels the impact, but, still, Blaine can’t tell if they’re crying “Don’t you dare do this to me, you monster” or “Don’t you dare walk away.”


	5. Chapter 5

**[From Blaine Anderson]** I did it.

 **[From Z]** ?

 **[From Blaine Anderson]** I found him. _Him_ him.

 **[From Z]** You are fucking kidding me you little piece of shit.

 **[From Blaine Anderson]** Nope. : ) He’s six feet away and glaring at me, as we speak.

 **[From Z]** Good.

 **[From Z]** I like him already.

Blaine makes his way towards the signing line and lingers just long enough to put himself at the end. He can’t leave the store now, not after he’s seen Kurt, spoken to Kurt, scared Kurt out of his skin . . .

The Q & A could have gone better.

He sighs and stares down at his phone, like it might start telling him what to do. The line inches forward. It’s moving too slowly for the other anxious shoppers, but far too quickly for him. When he gets to the front, he’ll have to figure out what to say, and beyond, “love the book jacket,” he’s at a loss. 

How are you supposed to tell a man you’ve never met that he’s spent the last decade living in your dreams?

The man in front of him in line wants his copy of _Remember Me_ made out to his daughter. “Mandy’s going to love this,” he says, with an earnestness that makes Blaine believe him. Finally, the man heads for the registers, his copy balanced atop a stack of books, and a man in a blue suit ushers Blaine towards the table. 

The woman from before, Santana, she’s standing at Kurt’s right, passing him books already open to the title page, so that he can scrawl a signature and slide it into the waiting customer’s hands. She’s also got her eye on him, as though he might launch himself over the table and tackle Kurt to the ground. She squints at Blaine as he holds out his copy, but Kurt must have seen him coming. Even as Blaine clears his throat and tries to smile, Kurt’s gaze remains down, trained onto the books passing under his nose.

“Hi,” Blaine starts, as Santana opens his book with a snap. “I’m sorry about the question before. It was—” he wipes his palms on the sides of his pants. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—”

“How would you like me to sign the book?” Kurt still doesn’t look up. He stares down at Blaine’s copy, his jaw tight and his pen poised above the page. “If you would like, I can make it out to someone special.”

“No,” Blaine shakes his head. “There isn’t anyone special. You can just sign Kurt Hummel or Kurt.”

Kurt starts to sign, but his hand freezes over the T. Slowly, he looks up from the page and into Blaine’s eyes. “Why do you say my name like that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kurt’s hand might be shaking, just barely, but his voice is steel. “You say my name like you know me,” he snaps, “Like you’re used to saying my name. I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before in my life, but you say my name like— like—” Blaine sucks in a breath. “You say my name like I’m _yours_ , and I think I deserve to know why.”

Blaine wants to answer, but he can only stare at the man who should be—god— he doesn’t know what they should be, but it isn’t this. They’re like strangers, standing on either side of a ravine where he’s _absolutely certain_ there ought to be a bridge. He stares as Kurt shakes with a kind of rage and exhaustion that Blaine doesn’t know how to fix.

The silence might have gone on for minutes or hours when Santana cuts in, her voice sharp as knives. “Thank you for coming to the reading and purchasing a book, _sir._ However, I’m going to have to ask you to move on so that our little prince here can have his daily Frappuccino.”

They both start.

“Yes. Of course,” Blaine says, sticking his hand out like the good little prep school boy that he’s always been. “I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time.” He hopes his eyes say that he’s sorry for a lot more than the time.

“It’s perfectly fine,” Kurt responds. He doesn’t look at Blaine’s eyes.

Kurt reaches out to take Blaine’s hand, and something explodes behind Blaine’s eyes. A white light spreads and he grabs onto the signing table to keep his wobbling legs from giving out completely. When the light clears, he’s still standing in the Barnes and Noble, but he’s also at the foot of the Dalton staircase turning to face a boy that he can hardly recognize.

Kurt.

Oh, he looks so young, so painfully young, but Blaine would recognize those eyes anywhere. The other version of him reaches out a hand, and all at once they’re running down the Dalton hallway, past murals he used to be able to reconstruct in his sleep. It was home. Up ahead, other students, in their blazers and neat coiffures gather around the commons, peering over each other’s shoulders and jostling for space. As Kurt and Blaine get close to the crowd, he squeezes Kurt’s hand and—

“Get the hell off of him!”

Blaine only has a second to think _What is this woman doing at Dalton?_ before a hand lands on his chest and he finds himself sprawled on the floor, Santana herself standing over his body, red-faced and livid.

“I don’t know what voodoo you just pulled on my author,” she says, low and dangerous, “but if you don’t get your tiny, evil butt out of this store in five seconds or less, I am going to break every one of your adorable little fingers.”

“Oh my—.” Blaine scrambles back on his hands. The Dalton vision—thing— it was just like his dream, except this time it had to happen in the middle of the day, in front of other people, and Kurt. Oh my god, Kurt. “I’m so sorry—”

“What part of broken fingers didn’t you understand?” She raises her hand toward his head when a voice comes from behind her back.

“Santana. Wait.” Behind the table, Kurt stands, his right hand raised. He stares at it, his face a blank, until he turns to Blaine. “Where were we?” he asks.

Blaine should ask what he means, but he already knows. “We— we were at Dalton. That’s where I went to high school.”

“So you’ve been there?”

“Yes?” Of course he has. Why would Kurt—?

“And you know that it’s a real place?”

Blaine almost thinks he’s joking, but the flash in his eyes looks like hope. “Absolutely,” he nods. “I spent three years walking down those stairs, but I— I never saw you there.”

Kurt nods and slowly lowers his hand. “Okay,” he says, as much to himself as anyone else. “Okay. Santana, please start cleaning things up. I’m going to have an abrupt conversation with this man.”

Steam practically comes out of her ears. “You have _got_ to be kidding!”

“Santana.”

A wordless something passes between them and as quickly as she attacked, Santana steps back, hands in the air. “Fine,” she says. “He’s all yours.”

Without a word, Kurt stalks off towards the door where he entered the room, leaving Blaine to push himself off of the floor and hurry to follow. He catches up just before the door and has to stop himself from touching Kurt’s elbow, just to let him know that he’s there.

Kurt pushes through the double doors and Blaine finds himself in a storage room filled with books and broken-down cardboard boxes. It makes a stark contrast with the warm greens and grays of the showroom floor, but it’s also empty and, right now, Blaine doesn’t need anyone else thinking that he’s crazy.

“Okay. Speak.” Kurt plants himself against a tall stack of boxes that reach toward the high ceiling, and wraps his arms around his body like armor. “I’m here and I’m listening, but if you give me one ounce of bullshit, I will have Santana on you so fast your head will spin and, honestly, I probably won’t need the help.”

Blaine nods down at the floor. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Fine,” Kurt sighs, “let’s make this simple. Has _that_ ever happened to you before?”

“You mean the vision, with the running?” Blaine asks and Kurt nods. “Then yes, but not really.” Kurt glares at him in utter disbelief, so Blaine turns until he can only see boxes and endless concrete. It’s easier if he doesn’t have to look at what he’s about to lose. No, he corrects himself; he never had Kurt to lose in the first place.

“I’ve see things before,” Blaine says, slowly, feeling his way through the words. “I’ve seen little things, but nothing as clear as—as— this time I could see the faces of former classmates. I remember their names, and nothing like that has ever happened before. Not ever. If you saw what I saw, then we were running toward the commons where my group used to practice. Everything was exactly the same, but Kurt, I’ve never _seen_ you before.”

Blaine looks back and finds Kurt eyeing him, warily, something shining at the corners of his eyes. “I have heard you before, or I’ve heard someone. For years, I’ve heard and felt and seen the traces of someone who was supposed to be in my life and, Kurt, I think that someone was supposed to be you.” Kurt sucks in a breath, but Blaine keeps pushing. “If you want, I can tell you about the Beatles or the bizarre food cravings at three in the morning. I could ask you what kind of ties you wear or whether you drink crappy Bloody Marys on Sunday mornings. I probably already know, but I don’t think that’s what really matters.” 

As Blaine watches, Kurt slowly unwraps his arms and braces them against the top of a box. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth as he stares at the ground and, suddenly, he looks so small. “I think,” Blaine continues, “that what I’m saying either makes sense to you or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, nothing I say can change that. I’m always gonna be that crazy guy who went nuts in Barnes and Noble. So, I’m going to go.”

Blaine pulls a notepad from his bag and scribbles as he talks. If he stops talking he might cry and that’s not something he can handle right now. “Here’s my number and my name. I’m Blaine Anderson, by the way. I promise I won’t bother you anymore if you don’t want me to, but if any part of that craziness just made sense to you then— I just,” he stutters, “aren’t you tired?”

For all he knows, Kurt’s already calling the cops in his head, but he can’t bring himself to look up. “If your life has been anything like mine for the last ten years, then aren’t you ready for a vacation? I know that I am sick of living my life with half of someone else—half of _you_ —on the margins. And if that sounds crazy or if you’re not ready to do anything about it, then I’m done.”

Blaine presses the paper into Kurt’s hand and turns to go. He makes it as far as the door before he hears a voice, small and tentative, at his back.

“Blaine,” Kurt says. “Wait. Just—” Blaine turns and finds Kurt shifting his weight from side to side. “I— I might know what you’re talking about.”

“Might?” 

Kurt nods. “Yeah, but I’ve never seen things or, I don’t know, craved food. It wasn’t like that for me. I—” He coughs out a low, dark laugh and peeks up from the floor, through shining eyes. “For me it was always the stories.”

Blaine walks back over the boxes and leans, carefully, against a stack as Kurt continues.

“They started when I was sixteen. I was—there was this bully, so I always assumed it was just a ‘coping mechanism’ as Miss Pillsbury would say.” He does air quotations and rolls his eyes. “Each time the guy shoved me into a locker, I imagined this sweet, funny prep-school boy who would show up in the courtyard and whisk me away to safely.” 

“Wow.” Blaine can't even imagine himself that way, like a knight in red piping.

“Yeah. You were something else, at least in my head,” Kurt smiles, ruefully. “Were you really the lead in your group?”

“I was,” Blaine smiles back.

“Good for you.” Kurt’s voice sounds sarcastic, but there’s no malice in his eyes. “The stories are all just words. I’ve only had one of those . . . I guess you could call them visions.” He fiddles with the hemmed edges of his shirt, and again Blaine has the urge to reach out for his hand. “It was in the fall of senior year and—” he breaks off as a blush spreads across his cheeks. “It doesn’t matter what happened, but it was _vivid_.”

“I remember.” Blaine says, quietly. He looks away, at the boxes, at the ceiling, at anything but Kurt’s face. “It was November of 2011. Am I right? I’m pretty sure it was a Saturday night and _intense_ , well,” he laughs. “Intense doesn’t even comes close.”

When he peeks up, Kurt’s eyebrows look like they are just about to lift off of his forehead. Blaine would apologize, but it’s true. He was in a haze for a week after that night, lost in the memory of a body that he couldn’t see. He got his first C because of that night and boy was it ever worth it. He shrugs, biting his lip like he's been caught skipping detention, and Kurt burst out laughing. 

For minutes, they laugh, holding their stomachs and wiping away tears with their shirtsleeves. Blaine’s giggle echoes in the empty space, and he tries not to stare at Kurt’s wide, toothy smile.

“Oh, thank you darling,” Kurt says, when he catches his breath. “I do love a good review.” 

Blaine giggles again. “And you deserve it. What were you, seventeen? And I was sixteen. Oh my god,” he breathes, “we were _babies_.”

“We were,” Kurt nods. “We’re not exactly geriatric now. But Blaine?” He catches Blaine’s eye, his hand covering just outside of his space. “I really have to go. If I don’t walk out there in the next few minutes, Santana is going to think that you somehow buried my body and, at this point, I’d rather she didn’t go after you with the razor blades in her hair.”

“Razor blades?”

“Long story. Anyway,” Kurt takes a long breath, “I’d love to get coffee or do  _something_ while I’m in town, if that’s okay with you? So far, I know that you actually do like football and that's not a mark in your favor, but we must have something in common.”

“The Beatles and Bloody Marys?” Blaine grins.

“It’s a start.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Tell me something real,” Kurt says as their desserts arrive, two ice cream sundaes topped, unceremoniously, with banana pieces and nuts. “I keep feeling untethered, like all the things I thought I knew are getting pulled up by their roots.”

“I know what you mean.” Blaine plucks a piece of fruit from his bowl and wonders if that’s actually true. To be honest, the more he learns about Kurt, the more grounded he feels, as though he can finally tie down the loose ends of his own life. Of course, he’s had longer to get used to the idea. 

“So, tell me something that you know is true. It doesn’t have to be big.” Kurt leans forward onto his elbows, their little table in the Elephant Diner swaying under the shift. Blaine could never say no to that face.

“Okay,” he says, staring up at the latticework on the ceiling, “I could go back to the football thing.” He laughs as Kurt wrinkles his nose. “I swear I won’t give you a play-by-play. A few years ago, I remember being at home for Thanksgiving and I had this overwhelming urge to watch the Cleveland Browns play the Green Bay Packers. Now, I like football well enough, but our family has always rooted for the Patriots. My dad’s from Boston and I think he had a shrine to some quarterback when he was a kid. Anyway, I begged my dad to put on the game and watched it like a hawk for hours. I couldn’t explain to my dad why I had to watch this exact game, but I remember feeling this intense, bone-deep satisfaction when they won.”

“That was my dad,” Kurt says, looking up from his puddle of ice cream. “I mean, he was the one watching the game. I was the one in the kitchen pretending not to care.”

Blaine feels his face fall. “Is he—?”

“Oh no, he’s fine,” Kurt says, softly, and for the millionth time that night he lifts his hand, as if to reach across the table. “That was just a tough year for him. He had some medical problems, with his heart, and I remember being so happy when the Browns won, because he was over the moon.”

“That’s really sweet, Kurt.”

Kurt rolls his eyes in discomfort. “Yes, it is, but if you ever tell him that I got physical or emotional pleasure from a football game, I will never live it down. That man has been trying to turn me into a football fan about as long as I’ve been trying to get him into better shoes. We Hummels are a stubborn bunch.”

Before Blaine can reply, Kurt’s eyes go wide. It takes a minute awkward silence, but Blaine finally realizes what Kurt implied. “If you ever tell him,” he’d said, as if the idea of Blaine meeting Kurt’s father was a foregone conclusion. They only met yesterday.

“Would either of you gentlemen care for more water?” A waiter with a kind, round face leans over their table, water pitcher in hand, and they both nod. Ice cubes clink in the silence and when the waiter steps away, Blaine steels himself. He can be brave.

“Would you—” he starts, “I mean, this might sound personal—”

Kurt snorts as he reaches for his water glass. “I think we might be past the need for that caveat, but go on.”

“Are you seeing anyone?” Blaine watches Kurt’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and he forces himself not to look away. “Like I said, it’s a personal question. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kurt smiles, “and also, no to your question. I was seeing someone, for a while, but I wasn’t really fair to him. It’s hard for anyone to complete with a fantasy that I’ve ‘known’ since I was in high school.” He shrugs, as though Blaine should be used to being called anyone’s fantasy. He is not. He can’t imagine anyone ever getting used to being Kurt Hummel’s fantasy. “And you?” Kurt eyes him up with something that seems like hope.

“Same. Dating me must have been hell. Once, I was on a date, and had to excuse myself to exfoliate,” he mirrors Kurt’s shrug. “My date was less than impressed.”

“I don’t blame him,” Kurt snorts. “I don’t know how many times I ditched some poor guy because I had to write. I know you haven’t read the novel, but—”

“Actually . . . ” Blaine bites his lip.

“No.” Kurt grabs the edge of the table and leans in, his eye wide in disbelief. “You didn’t. There’s no way that you had time to read that entire book in one night.”

“I was motivated,” Blaine says with a rueful smile. “I already knew who you were to me, so I suppose I wanted to know who I was to you. It didn’t really seem like the sort of thing that could wait until a free weekend.”

“And?”

“It was true. Almost none of it actually happened, and yet it was all true.” Kurt nods, but his eyes are lost. “What I mean is that I can’t imagine being a person who would change schools or cheat on my boyfriend and yet—” He pulls the book out of his bag and holds it to his chest. “Kurt, you gave me the chance to read what it’s like to be myself. Can you even imagine? This boy’s fear, his energy, his stupidity, that was all _me_ , even if I never had the chance to—”

“— to meet me?” Kurt finishes. 

Blaine nods and sets the book down on the table, like a precious heirloom. He rubs his thumb along the binding, and looks up just in time to see a tear rolling down Kurt’s cheek. “Oh god, what— is it something I said?” he stutters. “I promise that whatever it is, I didn’t mean it.” 

Kurt hiccups out a laugh between the tears. “No, silly. I just spent years compulsively writing a story that felt like gibberish and to hear that it made sense to you? That’s— That’s everything.” He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “God, you compliment me and I’m crying. You must think this is insane.”

“No,” Blaine grins. “I think it’s adorable. I think you’re adorable.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Kurt’s jaw drops and Blaine blanches. _He did not just say that._  

“Did you just—?” Kurt giggles.

“Yes.” Blaine drops his head into his arms, and Kurt’s giggles erupt into full-throated laughter. “I can’t believe I just quoted myself,” he moans into his shirtsleeves. “No, it’s worse than that. A fifteen-year-old version of me in some other universe said that. I’m stealing my best lines from children.” He peeks up to see Kurt fighting for breath across the table. “Kurt, please take this as a sign of incompetence and run while you still can.” 

“No,” Kurt grins, “I don’t think I will.”

“Oh, really?” 

Blaine doesn’t exactly mean for the line to sound flirty. That would mean stepping over some line that they haven’t yet defined. He’s about to apologize, but then Kurt leans in, his chin in his hands. “Really,” he says. “You don’t know this about me yet, but I’m pretty stupid when it comes to cute boys.”

 _Oh my._ This gorgeous man, with skin like satin and eye like stars, thinks he’s cute. “Kurt,” he bites his lip against a grin. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wish that I could kiss you right now.”

“Without going on a vision quest?”

“Mmm hmm.” Blaine hums.

Kurt glances up in mock consideration. “Well, I can’t say that I would mind, if that were an option. What else would you do, if this were a normal date?” 

“Which it is not.”

“Not in the slightest.” Kurt says it like a dare and Blaine can’t remember why on earth he was bothering about lines.

“If it were a normal date,” he starts, his voice quiet and sure, “I would probably have taken your hand about an hour ago, and then I might have run my thumb over your fingers while we were talking, just to make sure that you were really here. You might still be in my imagination.”

Kurt’s breath hitches. “I see,” he chokes. “Go on.”

“And, if that were acceptable,” Blaine smiles. “I might try nudging your foot, just to see if you’d nudge back.”

“Just so you know,” Kurt says, quickly, “I’d push back. Almost definitely.”

“Oh . .  good. That’s good.” 

Blaine pays for their meal in a haze, ignoring the waiter’s poorly hidden smirk. He’s fine with being smirk-worthy, at least as long as Kurt keeps looking at him like something between an apparition and a Christmas present. As they walk back toward their cars, they let their arms swing between their bodies, one next to the other, so that in a different lifetime they might have been holding hands. It’s too warm for snow, but it falls anyway, disappearing into tiny spots of rain on their skin. 

When they close in on Blaine’s car, Kurt turns, a question in his eyes. “We don’t know what would happen, do we?”

“If I, um, if I touched you again?” Blaine’s face goes hot as Kurt looks down at his hands. “No, we don’t. We might see something, like in the bookstore, or it could be completely normal. I mean, not bad normal, but—” 

“Did you ask Z?”

Blaine told him as much as he could about their two-person investigation over dinner. It made for a short story. “Actually,” he says. “I tried, but she told me to leave her alone so that she could keep working. On the plus side, she said I could call her Lauren instead of Z. I think she was getting tired of sounding like a Bond villain.”

Kurt doesn’t laugh. He stares down at his clasped hands and then back up into Blaine’s face. “Do you think she might like a new research partner?” he asks, his eyes serious. “New York was the last stop on the book tour and I don’t have to go back home right away. There’s nothing waiting for me there. You have to understand, Blaine, I’m not a guy who believes in fate or destiny, but everything in me is telling me that I’m supposed to already know everything about you and, I just— I want to know why.”

Blaine nods, slowly. 

He knows the gut-level longing to figure out why. He also knows that he’s having trouble breathing. Kurt inched in while he was talking and now, if he gets any closer, Blaine might forget how to speak. He’s usually so good at speaking, but not when he can feel Kurt’s gaze on his skin. Blaine leans back against the front door of his car, the glass and metal hard against his back. Kurt’s eyes haven’t left his mouth since he stopped talking, and when Blaine licks his lips, Kurt swallows, hard.  

“Kurt?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to find out what happens if we—?”

He only gets through half of the question before Kurt whispers, “fuck it,” and surges forward. Before he can think, Kurt kisses him and his brain shuts down. Soft lips push against his, and he whines into the touch, his mouth opening and breathing them in. One of Kurt’s hands slams against the car while the other reaches up to Blaine’s face, and as he does, Blaine realizes that he doesn’t feel the car door against his back. They might still be outside the Elephant Diner, making out on a sedan, but they’re also in the Dalton commons, warm and almost out of their minds with need. There, Blaine leans over Kurt’s body, almost in his lap, and when Kurt pulls him close, it’s a younger, smaller hand begging for more.

Blaine finally pulls away. “I—” he smiles down at the car keys in his hands. “We should probably start on that research.”

Kurt breathes. “I thought we were.” 


	7. Chapter 7

“Kurt.”

The man in question paces across Blaine’s living room floor for the thousandth time, trying out possible solutions out loud. If he hears Blaine say his name, he doesn’t show it.

“What about sectionals my junior year?” Kurt asks, his eyes trained on the floor. “That year the New Directions never competed against the Warblers and I can’t figure out why. I called Rachel and she remembers two teams, the Hipsters and some group called “Mouth Action.” I think they specialized in movie soundtracks. Anyway, we both started the strange 'occurrences' in November of 2010 and that lines up perfectly." 

“Aren’t sectionals usually in December?”

“Yes, but what if there’s some kind of correlation? Maybe we were supposed to find each other on the show choir blogs before the event or join forces—” 

“To take down _Mouth Action_?” Blaine doesn’t mean to sound so . . . dubious, but Kurt’s been at this for days. Last night it was the Lima Bean and two nights before he was convinced that they were supposed to have found each other in an aviary. The fact that Kurt had never owned a bird or wanted to own a bird— even if the accessories were promising— hadn’t sullied his enthusiasm. What was supposed to be a one-week stay in New York had turned into a month, most of which had been spent in three-way research mode with Miss Lauren Zizes.

Blaine would never complain about the extra time. The time is fantastic, but he can’t seem to summon Kurt’s enthusiasm for speculation. “Or, if not the movie team, are we supposed to be plotting against senior citizens?” he asks, eyebrows high.

Kurt misses the snark, eyes wide with possibility. “I don’t know. According to Lauren, the change could have been anything, and it didn’t have to be intentional. There could have been a mistake in the team assignments or _sabotage_. Then there would have been a reason to collude with the enemy and turn against your own team.” He shrugs when Blaine wrinkles his nose in distaste. “It doesn’t sound like you, I admit, but maybe we would have been different people if we’d met at the right time. I know that it sounds exactly like me. We could have been dueling spies and I would have dressed to perfection, now where is that algorithm?" 

Kurt dives for a pile of papers on the kitchen counter, riffling through the stack for one of a dozen printouts that he’d added to the investigation this morning.

Blaine drops into a kitchen chair and lowers his head into his hand. “There’s an algorithm for show choirs or for us?”

“For show choirs, silly.” Kurt fishes the paper out of the middle of the stack and plops into a chair at his side. As he lands, he pushes a sheet filled with numbers and math that Blaine used to understand into the space between their hands, giving it the reverence usually reserved for Beyoncé and actual royalty. “Brittany came up with it ages ago. It allowed us to predict who we were going to compete against for sectionals and regionals, so we didn’t have to wait for Mr. Schue to tell us two days before the competitions. I swear, that man would have suffocated himself if Ms. Pillsbury hadn’t reminded him to breathe.”

“Kurt?”

“Right,” Kurt turns back to the paper at hand. “So, according to the algorithm, the New Directions should have gone against the Warblers at least once between 2010 and 2012, but we missed all three years completely. What happened? The math is always right. It predicted the Hoosierdaddies before we even knew that they were a team, but somehow missed the Warblers? What are the odds?”

“Kurt.”

“Could someone have wanted us not to meet? I don’t want to think that, but what if it was intentional? Can you imagine?” He leans across the table to grab the papers on the other side and shoves them into a messy pile. “Maybe I could try calling Sheryl at the central office. She would know if there were any tampering allegations and then there’s Cathleen. She always was open to a little incentive—”

“ _Kurt._ ”

“What? I was going to send cookies.” He stares, and for the first time he seems to recognize that Blaine’s not in on the game. He pauses over the new pile of papers, half out of his chair, until Blaine slowly gestures for him to sit back down.

“It’s not about the bribe, Kurt. I know that you weren’t planning on sending your nest egg.” Blaine smiles, but the light doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Then what?” Kurt cocks his head, as Blaine looks back down at the table, tracing the flower pattern with his eyes. “Don’t you want to figure out why we’re like this? Don’t you want to know?”

“I— I don’t really know how to answer that.”

Kurt sits back in his chair, stunned. Blaine knows that he might as well have said that he doesn’t care about Sondheim or breathing. 

Blaine stares down at the table and at his hands tangled in his lap. “When I think back to when Z first made me think that finding you was even a possibility, it was never about _why_. I never thought about why it happened or solving the mystery of Kurt and Blaine. I just wanted there to be a Kurt and Blaine. I didn’t want the answer, I wanted you, and—” he breathes in slowly and centers himself on the long exhale, “I think that’s what I still want. All I still really want.”

He glances over as Kurt looks away, biting the inside of his lip. “Please don’t misunderstand me. If Lauren showed up on my door tomorrow and announced that she knew exactly why and how we became each other’s undead boyfriends, I would happily listen, but if she promised to make it all the way it was ‘supposed to be’? Kurt . . . I wouldn’t do that.” 

Kurt stares back, his eyes unreadable.

“I think you might, but I couldn’t,” Blaine continues, the words tumbling out like a landslide. “I like my life. I liked Dalton and college and everything that came after, and I don’t want to give it up just because in some version of reality it was all supposed to be different. Even more than all of that, I love having you in my life _right now_. I love cooking with you and watching movies with you before you go back to your hotel, and I love when we accidentally touch and I learn something that you didn’t want me to know yet.”

“Like the Pippa Middleton musical?” 

“Like the Pippa Middleton musical and the boyfriend pillow . . .” 

“Don’t even start on Bruce.” The edges of Kurt’s mouth twitch.

“That’s what I love,” Blaine says, with a sigh. “I love getting to know you just the way that you are right now. I don’t want to hit some button in time and magically become that other version of you and me. Even though I feel like I should already know you, I want the opportunity—no, the _pleasure_ —of getting to know you all over again.”

Kurt sucks in a ragged breath and reaches for Blaine’s hand, but stops just before they touch. His hand hovers over the table, before settling inches away.

Blaine watches, a half smile playing on his lips. After a long second of silence he huffs out a low laugh, and points his chin at their hands, lying parallel on the table. “Do you think that we’re ever going to just do that like normal couples?” Kurt glances away. “I know that it bothers you, when it’s almost as though we’re in two places at once. It’s like ‘a tease’ of the life we’re supposed to have, right?” Kurt just stares down at his hand. “I know that’s true,” Blaine continues, “and nothing I say can make it stop being true, but could we maybe—”

Blaine loses his words in the middle, so instead he holds out his hand, palm up and open. It takes Kurt a minute to realize what Blaine wants, but then he turns in his chair, back straight, eyes up, and takes Blaine’s hand. The transitions from here to there are quieter than they once were. There’s no more bright lights or fireworks. One minute they’re sitting together at Blaine’s kitchen table and, the next, they’re also sitting at a different kitchen table in an apartment Blaine’s come to think of as the ‘giant loft with the weird door.’ Books lay open on the strange table and they’re holding hands as they work. The moment is simple and easy. The visions have taken them there so many times it almost feels like home.

It’s Blaine that lets go first, bringing them back to a table that’s his rather than theirs. “Kurt,” he says, choosing his words slowly, “to me, that doesn’t feel like a tease of something we can’t have. That feels like a gift, something we get to experience on top of everything else like— like—”

Kurt smiles. “Like a harmony.”

“Yes.” Blaine breathes. “ _Exactly_.”

Blaine can’t tell who moves first, but they meet in the middle, all lips on the side on his mouth and hands in his hair. When Kurt tilts to the right, Blaine’s mouth opens to breathe and taste and pull him in. Kurt’s hands go to the side of his face as they kiss, and he holds Blaine close, like something precious and rare. _Mine._ His lips say, on Blaine’s mouth, his cheeks, his forehead, you are mine and _god knows I am yours_. 

Blaine breaks away with a gasp, his hands at Kurt’s waist. “Are we doing this? Because I’m definitely okay if we’re doing this.” He feels Kurt’s laugh as much as he hears it, the vibrations rumbling through Kurt’s chest and into Blaine’s body like a wave.

“I think we are,” he grins, and before Blaine can trace Kurt’s blush, they’re stumbling toward the bedroom, tugging at clothing, and tripping into walls.

They’re shirtless and breathless by the time the back of Blaine’s knees hit his bed. He’d usually be more bashful about firsts, there haven’t been many and there haven’t been any with Kurt, but now Blaine can’t imagine stopping to care about the size of his waist or the brand of underwear he’d put on that morning. How could he possibly care, when Kurt’s standing over him, hair wild and eyes stunned with desire.

“Let me,” he says, and his hands go to Kurt’s pants. He means to take them off, but he gets distracted. Without a proper bed frame, the mattress lies low to the ground. Kurt’s crotch is nearly at eye level, at mouth level, and Blaine stares. He reaches out, with shaking hands, to run his palm along Kurt’s length, and echoes Kurt’s groan when he throbs in Blaine’s hand.

From there, Blaine loses track of the plot. In this lifetime he unzips Kurt’s pants and pushes them down, just as Kurt starts to do the same for him. He pulls Kurt down on top of him and grinds up, through their underwear. In this life, he wants skin and touch and more skin, but at the same time, in another lifetime, their underwear is already gone. They roll, giggling, on a bed Blaine doesn’t recognize, and in both worlds Blaine has to close his eyes. It’s all perfect and far too much.

Kurt pushes himself up onto one arm, and reaches between their bodies to wrap his fingers around Blaine’s cock, first over the fabric and then under. His hand slips under the waistband, and then Blaine can’t think about anything except the pads of Kurt’s fingers as opens his mouth in a silent moan toward the ceiling.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, and there’s a smile in his voice. Kurt’s hand is doing wonderful things right now, but, god, he can actually feel Kurt’s smile on his skin.

Blaine almost giggles at the incongruity. “You already know.” Kurt already knows because Blaine already knows, how Kurt likes it on top— except when he doesn’t— and how he’s sensitive all along the side of his neck.

“Tell me anyway,” Kurt whispers into his ear. “I want to learn again.”

Later, this will be the moment when Blaine says he fell in love.

With guidance, Kurt finds the supplies in the bedside table, while Blaine peels off his underwear. Part of his brain knows that Kurt needs to get up, to get things and be responsible, but the rest of his brain whines for contact. “Start with two fingers,” he breathes, his knees dropping open of their own accord. “Rub in circles— no— smaller, and you can p—push harder.” He stutters at the promise.

Kurt follows directions, kissing the inside of Blaine’s thigh as he presses in. “Do you want to touch yourself?” He smirks and Blaine wants to kiss him. Kurt knows the answer already.

“Yes, but you won’t let me, because you want to do that.” Blaine grins up at the ceiling. “You are a bit of a control freak, my dear.”

“That’s only because I know what I’m doing.” And he pushes two fingers inside. He curls them up as he wraps his hand around Blaine’s cock and strokes him open, until he’s whining and curling into his own desire. If he’s here or in some other life, he doesn’t know or care. “See?” Kurt smiles and Blaine almost chucks a pillow at his head. 

“You’re very impressive and very evil,” Blaine groans. “Now get up here here before I send you back to Ohio.”

Kurt laughs, and it sounds like heaven.

 With Blaine’s legs over his shoulders, Kurt rolls on a condom and then reaches down to cup Blaine’s face in his hand. He doesn’t say anything, but when he finally pushes in, he watches his cock disappear into Blaine’s body with a kind of awe. They hold, shaking and gasping into each other’s mouths, until Blaine whispers, “push, god, _push_.” Kurt thrusts with a ragged groan, so slowly that Blaine wants to cry, and they roll together in uneven waves. As Kurt pushes in and in and in, Blaine curls up into the friction, pleasure coiling deep and spiraling out until he can’t see anything, feel anything, taste anything but Kurt. Kurt is skin and sound and sensation, and Kurt is everywhere. 

This time, when Blaine sees the light behind his eyes, he knows exactly where he is. He whimpers broken vowels and Kurt catches him on his way down. When Kurt comes, his hips snapping forward without his control, he sounds surprised. His gasp rings high and soft, and it is unspeakably beautiful. Blaine holds Kurt through the tremors and then holds his weight as Kurt remembers how to breathe.

For minutes or hours they lay side by side, both here and there. They lie still, sharing groggy smiles, hands, knees, and breath meeting in between.


	8. Epilogue

Kurt wakes piece by piece the morning after, coming into his skin at Blaine’s side, and sneaking quietly out of bed to let him sleep. He looks exactly as happy as Kurt expected, which is to say, happier than anyone Kurt has ever known. Kurt is young, in love, and punch-drunk on his own good fortune, but he’s still never been as happy as Blaine Anderson.

As he tiptoes toward the kitchen and the coffee maker, Kurt wonders if he’ll ever get used to Blaine’s sheer volume of feeling. He feels more than other people and when Kurt’s near him, it’s almost like he can do it too, as though Kurt can borrow from Blaine’s infinite stores and, together, they can love for a lifetime.

Kurt knows that Blaine’s right.

Or, more properly, he knows that they’re both right.

Kurt knows that there’s something off about sectionals. He pushes on the memory and it feels spongy, like new paint that hasn’t quite set. If he kept pushing, it might give way, but Blaine’s also right: he doesn’t want to become whatever they should have been.

He likes his life, but the not knowing . . . Kurt watches as the coffee drips through the percolator and sighs. The mystery is still terrifying. If he doesn’t know how or why Blaine showed up in his audience on his book tour, who’s to stop it from unraveling all over again? Could he wake up, he wonders, in a month or a year, and be alone again? Kurt’s not worried that Blaine will leave. He already knows better than that, but could he disappear? Could Blaine simply blink out of his life as quickly as he appeared?

Without answers, the possibility sounds reasonable and ridiculous all at the same time.

When the coffee finishes dripping, Kurt tips it into a mug with puppies dancing around the brim, and stirs the cup with a long-handled spoon. His laptop sits open on the table, left to idle by one of many stacks of research materials that will have to go into storage, at least for a while.

Lauren will understand eventually. She’ll call them both “doe-eyed idiots” and complain about her “prize specimens going into early retirement,” but then she’ll grin and ask when they want to buy her drinks to make it all better. She’s not going anywhere and neither, it seems, is Kurt.

It seems strange, but he never worried about the distance. He’s a writer. He can write anywhere. Apartments can be found, as can day jobs, and he’s not averse to living in the big city. No, he was always frightened by the mystery and, perhaps, by the writing. He hasn’t written since he got to New York. He’s written theories and solutions and notes after his meetings with Lauren, but those words are just tools. They’re just a way of getting to the real prize, like the stacks of paper and Brit’s algorithm from 2010.

Kurt stops stirring. He stares out the window and into snow that’s swirling down lazily from a cloudy sky. Maybe that’s all his words have ever been. They’ve been his clues and tools, like Blaine’s visions, and now they’ll disappear. Kurt pets the keys on his laptop, running his thumb from the question mark to the dash, and wonders if he’s a former writer. Blaine would say no. In fact, Blaine would tell him to stop being an idiot and come back to bed. The Blaine Kurt wrote and the Blaine that Kurt left back in bed are two very different men, but they would agree on that.

“You don’t just write what happened,” he would say. “You write what’s true.” Kurt hears the reprimand as clearly as if Blaine were leaning over his shoulder, and he smiles down at the keys.

He misses it. Even as he’s gotten to watch the real man walk into his life, some part of him misses the boy he spent ten years breathing onto the page. Kurt might not have answers, but without answers—

Bedsprings creak as Blaine stirs in the bedroom, and Kurt finds himself getting up from the table. He pads back to the bedroom and slips into his side of the bed, still warm from where he left it. Blaine’s turned away, tucked softly into his own body, and murmuring nonsense in his sleep. When Kurt curls against his back, Blaine snuggles back into the embrace, his back against Kurt’s chest and their fingers tangled together on the sheets.

Blaine hums out a smile, like a human purr, and as the snow settles in gentle drifts on the windowsill, Kurt closes his eyes and wonders how to describe the sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading along! If you want to say hello or ask a question, you can find me on tumblr as marauder-in-warblerland or you can drop a note below. Special love to everyone who commented on chapter one. Without you, this odd little love story would never have happened. <3


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